Nevada Shoe Print?

A number of strict creationists and "ancient anomaly" enthusiasts have
claimed that a "shoe print" was
found in Triassic rock near Fisher Canyon, Pershing County, Nevada.
(Brenner, 2006; Cremo and Thompson, 1993; Jochmans, 1979; Tanner, 1975; von Fange, 1981; Wenlong, 2006).
Although most of these authors state that the print was found by John Reid in 1922 (or 1927 according to
some), evidently it was actually found by Albert E. Knapp, an employee of Nevada Mining Company, on or
before January 15th, 1917 (Hubbard, 1927).

Two early reports about the specimen include a March 19, 1922 story in the New York Times,
and an October 8, 1922 article by W. H. Ballou in the American Weekly section of the
New York Sunday American. The latter article, entitled "Mystery
of the Petrified Shoe Sole" stated:

"Some time ago, while he was prospecting for fossils
in Nevada, John T. Reid, a distinguished mining engineer and geologist,
stopped suddenly and looked down in utter bewilderment and amazement at
a rock near his feet. For there, a part of the rock itself, was what
seemed to be a human footprint! Closer inspection showed that it was
not a mark of a naked foot, but was, apparently, a shoe sole which had
been turned into stone. The forepart was missing. But there was the
outline of at least two-thirds of it, and around this outline ran a
well-defined sewn thread which had, it appeared, attached the welt to
the sole. Further on was another line of sewing, and in the center,
where the foot would have rested had the object really been a shoe sole,
there was an indentation, exactly such as would have been made by the
bone of the heel rubbing upon and wearing down the material of which the
sole had been made. Thus was found a fossil which is the foremost mystery
of science today. For the rock in which it was found is at least 5 million
years old."(Ballou, 1922).

Ballou's account not only starts by mistakenly crediting Reid rather than
Knapp as the discoverer, it also ends with a somewhat misleading
comment about the rock's age. If the print was found in Triassic rock
as most of its proponents assert, then the mainstream age would be at
least 200 million years (while many strict creationists would hold
that it is no more than 10 thousand years old).

There are also a number of problems with the shoe print interpretation.
The first is that from the only photographs available (Figs. 1a, 1b), the object
appears to be a broken ironstone
concretion, perhaps one that has suffered
some erosion. Such concretions often show ovoid shapes and concentric banding
similar to the Nevada "shoe print."
As noted on the website,
amonline.net, "odd shapes of concretions arouse curiosity and they
can often be mistaken for fossils, bones, meteorites or other unusual objects.
Concretions can have regular shapes like blocks, boxes, pipes, flat discs,
canon balls, or even resemble parts of a human body such as a foot or rib."
Likewise Rowe et.al. (2001) state (when discussing an alleged
dinosaur heart), "Ironstone concretions are notorious for
producing suggestive and misleading shapes."

Fig. 2. Some possible shapes the original
concretion might have taken

Ballou states that the print shows about half of its original shape, and McCann (1922)
claims the print would fit a child's number 13 shoe. However, both comments
involve considerable presumption about the missing portion. In reality, one
cannot know the precise length or shape of the missing section (see Fig. 2).
Even if the original specimen had a shape compatible with a normal shoe
(basically an elongate oval), such a shape is not uncommon for inorganic features,
especially concretions. Therefore, unless one found a series of such markings
in a repeating left-right sequence, there is no basis for interpreting
them as human prints.

Fig. 3. An ironstone concretion

Fig. 4. Some iron-stone concretions showing concentric banding

One of the more detailed popular accounts of the find appeared in the
strict creationist book God - Or Gorilla (McCann, 1922, 1925), much of
which was repeated in the book Views on Creation, Evolution,
and Fossil Man (Tanner, 1975). These authors relate that microscopic photography
of the print was conducted by the Rockefeller Institute and showed the presence
of two rows of stitching, about 1/3" apart, with the appearance of
hundreds of minute holes through which the sole was sewed to the shoe."
However, the authors did not show any microscopy images to back up these
assertions. They also do not explain the inner-most band, which is well
inside where the supposed stitching lines occur. Again, such concentric
banding is common on iron-stone concretions.

Fig. 5a. Sandstone slab from building-stone yard

Fig. 5b. Liesegang rings, Cretaceous, Alberta.

Similar banding is also common in sandstone slabs. Such features are
called "liesegang rings" for their similarity to tree rings. Geologist
Andrew MacRae explains
that such stones are typically orange, red, or
brown in color, since they are rich in iron oxides. MacRae explains that
they form when oxygen-bearing water diffuses through a porous rock, often
from fracture surfaces, and that the process often leaves concentric
rings of alternating color, "...not unlike rings of a bathtub, except the
process occurs in three dimensions." (MacRae, 2006).
Recently I stopped at
a landscaping and building-stone supply yard near Houston, and observed
a number of such slabs, some of which showed ovoid and
roughly footlike shapes (Fig. 5). The banding extended beyond the
footlike shapes, showed no appreciable topographic relief, and clearly
were not real footprints.
However, portions of such slabs might become more footprint-like
with erosion--especially if only the center portion were preserved.
These examples reinforce the point that finding merely an isolated
oblong shape on rock (let alone a portion of one) is far from compelling
evidence of a genuine footprint.

McCann states that the Nevada print was found by Albert Knapp "on the North slide
of Buffalo Peak, about twenty miles due easterly of the town of Lovelock."
He also states that the rock formation there is Star Peak formation, and
that the supposed shoe print shows "veinlets of calc-spar
characteristic of the blue limestone of the Triassic stratum." The Star
Peak is middle Triassic (Nichols and Silberling, 1977), which would make
the rock approximately 235 million years old by conventional geology.
However, evidently there has been no
independent confirmation of the specimen's lithology or association with this
formation, or evidence that the surface of the print is a bedding plane. Real prints
always occur on bedding planes. Nor is there any evidence that the object
was ever part of a striding sequence. Indeed, by most accounts the rock was found
on a pile of loose rocks (explaining why the missing portion was not collected).
The present whereabouts of the specimen are also unknown. Despite the problems
with the shoe interpretation, and the fact that even most strict creationist groups
do not endorse it, McCann and Tanner ridicule skeptical "evolutionists" as closed-minded.

More recently, strict creationist Jeff Brenner (2006) stated on his website (removed in
2007), "The print was inspected by geologists and admitted that the
print is authentic." However, the only geologist he mentioned by name is Ried, whom he mistakenly
credited as the discoverer, and whose views are not even stated in
any of the literature I have found on the topic. McCann (1925)
does include the comments of three geologists, but they merely remarked on its
resemblance to a shoe print, using terms such as "natural mimicry,"
"surprising imitation by nature," and "most deceptive"--indicating that they did not
regard it as a real print. Brenner also repeated past claims about the stitching
features with no supporting documentation. He suggested that the lack
of "evolutionist" response to the "print" is evidence of its authenticity. However,
besides myself, other mainstream workers have addressed this claim--as far as they can based
on the sketchy evidence available
(Fitzpatrick-Matthews, 2006) . Also, Brenner's reasoning was
backwards. Whenever extraordinary claims are made, the obligation is on the claimants to
provide the evidence to back them up, not on others to refute them, especially when poorly
documented.

Conclusion:

The "Nevada shoe print" claims are not well supported by the
available evidence. The footprint advocates have presumed that the
missing portion of the object was very shoe-like in shape, whereas
any number of other shapes are possible. They have not demonstrated
that the supposed print was ever part of a striding sequence,
or that it contains the detailed "stitching" features they
assert. The present location of the object is
unknown, impeding further study. Judging from the available
photographs, the specimen is most likely a broken ironstone
concretion, perhaps one that has suffered some erosion.

Acknowlegements: I would like to thank Keith Fitzpatrick-Matthews for helpful
comments and assistance in locating pertinent references.

References

Ballou, W. H. 1922, American Weekly section of the
New York Sunday American (Oct. 8).

Yancey, Tom
, 2006 (email communication). Dr. Yancey is a professor in the department of geology
and geophysics at Texas A & M University. He agrees that the object is likely a
fractured concretion, and adds that the banding probably represents
silica, with any porosity within in the bands due to incomplete replacement (Yancey,
2006). This might explain the supposed "stitching" features.